Video Reflection

These are my impressions from making the video in class.

If I could do this project over again, I would not give Angelo any lines. No, I am just kidding; Angelo did a great job. We really should have had cue cards from the very beginning though because we went from doing around 10 takes for each scene to 1 when we were properly scripted. No one from the class had much negative feedback with the final product of the video, but there were certainly things that could have gone a little smoother in the recording process.

I liked recording this video more than ones in the past because we had the Flips and they made it extremely easy to take footage and put it onto our computers. I especially liked learning how to use iMovie because it is the easiest video editing software I have ever used. Selecting part of a clip you want and dragging it into the timeline, dropping transitions, text, and audio clips in, it all works pretty much exactly as you would guess it would work. The only slightly challenging parts were doing still frames or changing audio levels because those options are sort of hidden in right-click menus.

I think it would be possible to make a video like this in a class I teach, as I had to make videos like this when I was in high school, but it is certainly much easier when you have all of the right equipment for it. In order to do this with a middle or high school class, I would want to make sure there were video recorders like the Flip in the school that we could give out to students, and they would film during the school day. It would also be important to have the right computers and environment for editing. I liked having each student do the editing individually as it forces everyone to learn how to do it. Hopefully, we would have a computer lab with iMovie on all the computers, and I would have the kids edit during a period with headphones on because it can be difficult getting all the audio right when you hear everyone else in the class editing theirs.

From creating this video, I certainly learned how to edit well in iMovie. I felt like I was able to make a video that was surprisingly professional looking once I mastered how to put text and transitions in and get the timing perfect. I also learned that video projects are more enjoyable to make if you have the right recording equipment, as a lot of the annoyance of making videos in lower education came from figuring out how to get the technology in order.

Class and Blog Reflection

These are my thoughts of my Education in Technology class and blog activity at the end of the semester.

This semester has opened up my eyes to more unique uses of technology in the classroom. Schools buy technology for teachers but often times, nobody gives them much guidance on how to use it, and consequently, their use of technology in the classroom is uninspiring. After reading articles that suggest creative uses of technology, searching for websites that could be used in the classroom, and watching student lessons that used the SmartBoard in different ways, I now have an arsenal of different ways to utilize technology in my lessons. For example, I could do a virtual field trip as I did for my lesson, or I could have the students do matching games on the SmartBoard many as my peers demonstrated in their lessons. I was already comfortable with technology before this class, but I feel like I will be more creative with it now.

I have some experience with web design, and I plan on having a website when I am a teacher. I do not know if I will use this blog we created in class, or possibly design a website from scratch that allows me to have a more flexible format than a blog does, but making the blog has been a useful experience in any case. I especially got a lot of practice embedding content, something I had never done much of before. I now know that hidden under a button or the settings of almost every Google service is an embed option that will let you bring that content to your personal blog or website. Making the blog has also been a good experience because it showed me how useful it can be as a learning tool. When I am a teacher, I would like to use blogs as a means of having students create a portfolio of sorts throughout the semester where all of their work is preserved online, reviewed by peers, and available for their friends and family to look at.

Video on Misuse of Technology

This is a video I created with my group demonstrating a few of the ways that technology can be misused in the classroom. Using phones to text or sext, laptops to game or browse the internet, and iPods to listen to music during class are all examples of ways that technology can be inappropriate or distract students in the classroom.

An excellent book on language learning

This is a limited preview of a book on Google Books entitled "How to Learn Any Language" by well-known polyglot, Barry Farber. Read over the first few pages to boost your interest in language learning.

Spanish Vowels Lesson Plan

This is what a lesson plan for one of my classes looks like: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nHfNM1dMPPD3c4-E6KEDiFzTfjuB0ebzjsOgw44jjUE/edit?hl=en_US

This is a metacognitive lesson plan, which means I go through and explain the reasoning behind each part of the lesson.

Intro to Spanish I survey

Spanish I students: please complete this survey so I can learn what connections you have with Spanish speakers!
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7YWMQ6C

Quiz on Spanish False Friends

The Language Master

This is part of a documentary on the language teacher that inspired me to learn Spanish.

Learning at your own pace

‎"I cringe at the idea of my son in the same rooms that I used to sit in staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring. I don't want him to do that for 12 years."

A webquest about foreign language learning

I put together a few resources about language learning in general that I enjoy and help me get in the right mindset for learning a language:

http://trackstar.4teachers.org/trackstar/ts/viewTrack.do?number=428341

Tech Tips

I think this article really nails the best, easiest ways to use technology in classrooms right now. Using technology to break the ice and discover skills that the students possess can give the teacher and students a head start, with knowledge of their peers that they would normally have to discover as the semester goes on. I know that having the Google Presentation with all of our pictures and names in it has been a helpful way for me to remember everyone's name in this program (the Facebook group helps with that too). And knowing ahead of time which kids are able to do something, like editing video, enables you to do video projects more smoothly by sneakily putting at least one experienced kid in each group.

I think one of the best ideas this article presents is having the teacher make a website for the class. I have found that many teachers have a tendency of telling students homework assignments vaguely in class and not sticking to the syllabus, so the kids go home and freak out because they aren't sure what is expected of them. After having some college classes where teachers would post online exactly what they wanted from us, I now get a little paranoid in any class that does not have a course website, as I fear I may have forgotten to write an assignment or part of one down. As a teacher, I want to have a website with a skeleton outline for a syllabus at the beginning of the semester, and then I'll fill in the assignments for each week as we go along. I also want to have additional resources and videos up that help kids with the course material outside of class.

Apart from these more obvious ways to use technology, I liked that the article had some tips that I had never heard before. For example, the website Wordle, which can take a bunch of text and make a wordcloud out of the most frequently-used words. You could put students' papers into this individually, or even all at once, and it would likely reveal common themes, vocabulary, and transitions used by the students in their writing. This could then be used to create very interesting class discussions. I also loved how the article used the terminology "back channel" to describe the conversation that could take place outside of classroom discussion through services such as Twitter, blogs or wikis.

Adobe Illustrator Screencast

Making an impact in a crowded world

The article Creating a New Culture of Teaching and Learning addresses some of the biggest challenges with integrating technology in education today. One important challenge that I want to address is our trust in the internet. The article describes the misconceptions that some people have about the internet, saying "I have learned that for many kids if it’s on the Internet, it’s true. I didn’t realize until recently that it’s also the case that for a significant group of kids, if it’s not on the Internet it’s not true." The internet is intimidatingly vast. When I perform a Google search nowadays, I generally don't venture far from the first page of results, let alone the first result itself. But I am always aware of the long row of "ooooooooooo" at the bottom between "G" and "gle" informing me that there are many more pages, each filled with 10 results. Unlike a library, you can't quantify the internet. You can't see a building that contains all of the internet, or shelves lined with all of its web pages. The effect that this has on us as individuals, I believe, is it makes our knowledge and opinons feel small and unimportant. It used to mean more if you were a knowledgable person; people directed their questions at you and trusted your responses. Nowadays, any person with a smartphone in his pocket is a trivia master, capable of quickly finding you any piece of information you would likely want to know, so long as he has a good 3G or wifi signal.

There are over a billion people in the world connected to the internet, capable of quickly putting up their own webpage, blog and tweets filled with whatever information or opinons they have to offer. That's a lot of competition for our own ideas to affect people, but we need to remind kids (adults too) that it is still possible to impact the world with their mind and voice. Many times, the papers we write and theories we come up with in high school aren't that far off from what the "experts" of the world create. We should encourage students to create from an early age, assess the value of their creations, and get them out into the world if they are good. I love the author's suggestion that students learn how to create webpages early on in school. People do not usually seek information nor insightful opinions from printed five paragraph essays; so why are they the primary way we have students express themselves? When students write and print out essays for years, they have little chance to impact anyone in the world other than the teacher reading their work. So why don't we have them publish their work in more real-world ways, so they can have a real-world impact and receive useful real-world criticism? We need students to value their own opinions and the work they do more, instead of doing the bare minimum to get A's in classes.

As people are quick to note, this ease of publishing content to the world requires those consuming from the internet to do so with more caution and skepticism. But I think people make too much of a big deal about how the internet is creating a need to question information and sources. Why? Because we should always question the information presented to us, and acknowledge that humans, no matter what their academic title is or how "peer reviewed" their work is, are prone to making and publishing their errors to the world. Maybe students put too much trust in what they read on the internet, but they have also been putting too much trust into what they have read in textbooks and magazines for years. Skepticism is an essential aspect of critical thinking, and students should know that textbooks are written by humans, history is written by humans, research is conducted by humans, and any given piece of information they read can by false. This article says "don’t teach children to use the Internet unless you’re willing to teach them to think and discriminate." Don't be a parent or teacher if you're not willing to teach children to think and discriminate.

Did you know... the world is moving fast

This video, Did you know? 4.0, is proof itself that times are moving faster, as I had to pause it during certain frames to fully process all of the facts it was throwing at me. I generally try to read science and technology news every day and think about the direction tech is headed in because I find it interesting, and I feel it is the best way to keep up with the times. It can be embarrassing watching our parents or teachers struggle with technology that we have been comfortable with from a young age, and when I have my own students or children one day, I want to make sure I do not show the same signs of being old fashioned. As soon as my brother and I started playing video games, my parents felt like they couldn't relate to us anymore and the amount of quality time we spent together seriously declined. If my children are going to be playing video games, or video chatting friends, or using smartphones, I want to be able to do it with them.

As teachers, it is especially important for us to be up to date with technology, as the youth we will have in class will spend much more time than adults playing video games, and using computers and smart phones. Children will be intrinsically interested in and excited by technology, and incorporating it in the learning process will create a more fun, modern classroom experience. As we briefly discussed in class, this could involve "flipping the classroom", where students could do more of their learning through videos and other online resources at home, at their own pace, and possibly with their family and siblings. The classroom could then become more and more the place where students get together with their peers to really apply their knowledge through projects, presentations, group work, activities, and problem solving. Or it could mean finding creative ways to incorporate video games and social networking sites, things that children are drawn to, into really meaningful projects and activities.

As this video shows, technology is becoming a more prevalent part of our lives and the world at a rapid pace, and keeping up with the changes is one of the fundamental struggles of our generation.

First week

Somehow classes always feel just as long, whether it's an 80 minute class in high school or undergrad or a 6 hour class in grad school. I tell friends I'm taking 6 hour classes and they can hardly believe it, but they are more bearable than one would think. Like all classes, they just seem to drag on toward the 2/3 point as you become more eager to get out.